1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates in general to a memory card slot. More specifically, the present invention relates to a memory card slot door unit for opening and closing an entrance of the memory card slot, and a digital mobile apparatus having the same.
2. Description of the Related Art
Generally, a digital mobile apparatus, such as a digital camera, a digital camcorder, a cellular phone, a portable game machine, and so forth, uses a portable memory as a storage medium for expanding the storage capacity of data, including still images and moving images.
A portable memory typically looks like a card and is inserted into a memory card slot in a digital mobile apparatus. Examples of the portable memory include a MMC (multimedia card), a memory stick, an SD (secure digital) card, and so forth. The memory card slot secures an inserted memory card, and serves to electrically connect the memory card to a controller in a digital mobile apparatus. Therefore, when a memory card is inserted in the memory card slot, the controller of the digital mobile apparatus stores data in the memory card or reads data from the memory card.
However, if the entrance of the memory card slot is not covered, the memory card sometimes slips away from the memory card slot in the middle of usage of a digital mobile apparatus or while being carried. To prevent this kind of incident, the entrance of the memory card slot needs to be covered. For instance, a memory card slot door may be installed at the entrance of the memory card slot to allow a user to selectively open or close the memory card slot.
There are a number of conventional ways to close the memory card slot. One of them is to use a door to block an entrance of the memory card slot. More specifically, the door is disposed at a longer side of the memory card slot parallel to the entrance of the memory card slot and pivotably supported by a hinge that has a hinge shaft having a length corresponding to the length of the memory card slot. The door is pivoted on the hinge, thereby selectively opening and blocking the entrance of the memory card slot. However, a drawback of this structure is that the hinge needs an installation space approximately similar to or larger than an area of the entrance of the memory card slot. Therefore, it is difficult to manufacture compact-sized digital mobile apparatuses. That is, a digital mobile apparatus with the above-described memory card slot door is too big for a user to use or carry around.
Therefore, it is necessary to develop a small-sized memory card slot door capable of selectively opening and closing the memory card slot.